is a collection of 24 short stories by Japanese author Haruki Murakami. The stories contained in the book were written between 1980 and 2005, and published in Japan in various magazines and collections. The contents of this compilation was selected by Murakami and first published in English translation in 2006 (its Japanese counterpart was released later in 2009). Around half the stories were translated by Philip Gabriel with the other half being translated by Jay Rubin. In this collection, the stories alternate between the two translators for the most part. Murakami considers this to be his first real English-language collection of short stories since The Elephant Vanishes (1993) and considers after the quake (2000) to be more akin to a concept album, as its stories were designed to produce a cumulative effect. In the introductory notes to the English-language edition of Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman, Murakami declares, "I find writing novels a challenge, writing stories a joy. If writing novels is like planting a forest, then writing short stories is more like planting a garden." Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman (Saules aveugles, femme endormie), an animated film adaptation of the book by French animator Pierre Földes, premiered at the Annecy International Animation Film Festival in 2022. Contents Many of the stories in the collection have been published previously in Japanese periodicals (not listed here), then translated in literary magazines (mentioned below), although some have been revised for Blind Willow. The stories are listed below in the order in which they appear in the book. Many of the stories are translated by Philip Gabriel and Jay Rubin. The story was adapted into the homonymous Tony Takitani, a 2004 Japanese film directed by Jun Ichikawa. The final five stories all appeared in the collection Tōkyō kitanshū (Strange Tales from Tokyo), published in Japan in 2005. The story "The 1963/1982 Girl from Ipanema" (translated in Jay Rubin's 2002 Haruki Murakami and the Music of Words) was originally to be added as a bonus 25th story (hence its mention by advance-copy reviewers such as Kirkus Reviews or Los Angeles Times) but the collection was eventually left with the 24 stories Murakami intended. The story "Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman" became the basis of "The Diary of Sounds", a 2012 Ukrainian short film directed by Glib Luukianets. Multiple stories from the collection are being animated for a feature-length film written and directed by Pierre Földes. Set to